BBC’s “Famous, Rich and Jobless” (telecast at 9.00 pm on March 10, 2010) seems another in the long list of “Celebrity tourism”, as the Guardian puts it, to grace our television. A bunch of “celebs” visited various members of the public who are living purely on benefits to see if they can help them.
That the rationale behind the show was shaky as hell is another topic altogether. What I want to discuss is the issue raised by one of the celebs, Diarmuid Gavin, as he visited a big family receiving £29,500 a year from the state. 28-year-old Mum and 29-year-old dad are both jobless and mum is pregnant with her sixth child. They live in a massive six-bedroom detached house and the dad hadn’t had a paying job in seven years.
Of course, this small fact doesn’t deter him from having more and more babies, that the taxpayer pays for. When Diarmuid asks the wife what she feels about sponging off the state, she points to her husband and goes “it is his fault! He wants a big family.”
That made me speechless.
How can you have a child without figuring out how you are going to provide for its future? When you yourself do not have a job, how can you have more and more children?
Answer: Quite easy. Get the state to pay for it.
There was some sob story in the offing, of course, why the dad hadn’t got off his backside and found himself a paying job in 7 years but I don’t buy it. Both husband and wife used to do menial jobs before and chances of them pulling in £30000 a year are slim. But now, thanks to the gazillion kids, they not only have the money, they even have other perks like rent, council tax etc that are paid by the state, aka, taxpaying mugs like you and me.
Apparently, the sick bastard labelled ‘British Fritzl’ was “driven by child benefit greed” and kept raping his daughters and having babies with them because he got child benefits! Ba$tard wants a plush lifestyle and instead of going out there and working his butt for it, he impregnates his daughters repeatedly and bills the state for the childcare.
If these are not examples of gross abuse of the British welfare state system, I do not know what is.
I say give the benefits to the old, the infirm, those who cannot fend for themselves. The OAPs who die every winter because they cannot afford to pay their heating bills, give them the money. The disabled person who cannot go out there and earn her daily bread, give her the money to look after herself. The others, able-bodied ones who are sitting in the comfort of their six-bed taxpayer-funded life, get over yourself and go out there and get a paying job.
I used to work for a social research agency and one of my projects was working on the incapacity benefits – who was receiving them, how much and what was their status. The findings made my blood boil. Whilst there were genuine applicants, there were many who, despite their claims to go out there and work if given a chance, would rather sit comfortably and watch the benefit cheques come in month after month.
I say the simplest way to reduce the massive deficit is to completely rehaul the benefits system. If guys like the father-of-five-with-one-on-the-way had to pay their own way, I am sure they would stop whingeing and get a vasectomy first and a job next.
*image courtesy: Guardian.co.uk
Yep – this kind of thing would make my blood boil too. What puzzles me is don’t the authorities see how much of a drain such people are, on the country’s resources? That should be motivation alone to overhaul the system. Good article!!
Ta, Cee
You know this post is on tweet meme’s hot list?
Is it? How odd! I can’t see it!
THIS is where my money goes every month and year? Incenses me. I don’t get why the govt is okay with paying out to people like this. Surely SOMEONE must see it makes no sense?
There was some story about another family living on benefits because they were all They were all ‘too fat to work’. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5004431/Family-who-are-too-fat-to-work-say-22000-worth-of-benefits-is-not-enough.html
Too fat to work? Right they do look like they spend only £50 a week on food. And did you read what the daughter says? Cos she is a student she gets no time to exercise!!
How utterly disgusting. Bah. the welfare state needs to get its act together.